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Cheaper croissants in the morning is one thing; being charged according to your credit rating is another. As Black Friday approaches, should we trust the prices of online stores – and even bricks-and-mortar retailers?

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The New York Times reported in an opinion piece last week on a fascinating and disturbing story. In 2013, police officers in Wisconsin arrested Eric Loomis, who was driving a car that had been used in a recent shooting. He pleaded guilty to attempting to flee an officer, and no contest to operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent.

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Computer algorithms now shape our world in profound and mostly invisible ways. They predict if we’ll be valuable customers and whether we’re likely to repay a loan. They filter what we see on social media, sort through resumes, and evaluate job performance. They inform prison sentences and monitor our health. Most of these algorithms have been created with good intentions. The goal is to replace subjective judgments with objective measurements. But it doesn’t always work out like that.

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Artificial intelligence keeps getting creepier. In one controversial study, researchers at Stanford University have demonstrated that facial recognition technology can identify gay people with surprising precision, although many caveats apply. Imagine how that could be used in the many countries where homosexuality is a criminal offense.